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Pinterest Launches New Web Analytics Tool For Businesses

Online bookmarking tool Pinterest is rolling out a new Web Analytics Tool that will allow businesses to track the number of visitors delivered to their website, see what people are pinning from their site and other useful information. This is part of the rapidly growing startup's effort (Pinterest quadrupled from 9 to 40 million users in 2012) to build a platform that can eventually integrate different money-making apps and features. Pinterest officially introduced business accounts for users last November and is finally making good on its promise to marketers late last year that it would introduce data analytics tools for businesses, of verified websites, to track Pinterest referral traffic. The new tool provides businesses with visual graphs about their content interactions like how many people have pinned from their site, the number of views each pin has, and the total users that have visited a site from Pinterest. Now Google Analytics can also provide data on referral traffic from Pinterest, but lacks any real insight into actual user activity on the site.

Pinterest providing companies with data about their profiles and users is a "pretty clear step in the direction" of monetizing Pinterest, said Greg Sterling, a senior analyst with Opus Research, a San Francisco-based market research firm. "They couldn't really start charging people without some way of measuring the efficacy of the spend," he said. Pinterest is "building foundations to monetize" its service this year, Chief Executive Ben Silbermann told The Wall Street Journal last month. Pinterest doesn't currently run any paid ads, but makes money through affiliate advertising, and has plans to integrate a potential advertising system, as well as further monetize revenue from merchandise sales on affiliate sites.

Just in February, Pinterest raised $200 million in venture capital from firms that include Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners. The deal put a valuation on the 3-year old company at a whopping $2.5 billion. According to comScore, Pinterest was the 38th most visited website by U.S. internet users in January, with about 30 million unique visitors. The first new tool, which Reuters is reporting will be available to business for free on Tuesday, will provide key insights into user activity like frequency of clicks on particular photos. Other features Pinterest may roll out soon, according to TechCrunch, include smart "suggestions" for users based on what they have already added to boards, along with plans to launch more international sites. "The goal is really to help websites understand what content is resonating with people on Pinterest," Cat Lee, a product manager at Pinterest told Reuters in an interview. To get started make sure you have early access to Pinterest's new look, have a verified website and then you should see the analytics option available in the top right menu! Pinterest's traffic increased by a staggering 5,124% from 2011 to 2012! With such rapid growth businesses need more efficient and powerful tools to measure engagement on Pinterest, and that day is finally here friends! Have you got to try out the new analytic tool for Pinterest yet?